Prague Journal

Monday, July 4, 2005

Today is Independence Day in the United States so I am wearing the lovely American Flag bicycle pin that Barb Buchan gave me last fall. Today is a regular workday in the Czech Republic, so I don’t expect any fireworks or barbeques here today. The Czech holidays start tomorrow.
I am in Brno at the WACRA conference, a group of 110+ academics of various disciplines who are involved in case writing and teaching, interactive pedagogical methods and curriculum reform. The presentations so far have been fairly interesting, but the organization of the conference is less professional than I had expected, with more people on the program because of who they know than for what they have to say. Eva and Martin and I gave our presentation after lunch to a small crowd, since there were competing sessions and an optional bus tour to Olomoc at the same time. We had only a few minutes for participant interaction and questions during the session, so it is not clear how much discussion we may have sparked. But, if the success of the presentation can be gauged by the hangers-on after our session who wanted to talk with us further, then I can say our presentation was well-received.
I went to the hotel lobby to use the internet before dinner because I wanted to check the Tour de France results. You will be relieved to know, if you don't know already, that Lance Armstrong was again content to ride safely behind in the main pack while Tom Boonen of Belgium won a stage at the Tour de France for the second straight day. Boonen captured the third stage, a 133-mile leg from La Chataigneraie to Tours, in a riveting sprint to the line. He won Sunday's stage in similar fashion. U.S. rider David Zabriskie of Team CSC kept the overall leader's yellow jersey, narrowly ahead of second-placed Armstrong. Boonen keeps the green jersey as the best sprinter.
The evening’s “gala dinner” was at Špilberk Castle, a huge baroque fortress overlooking Brno, that was once the heaviest prison in the Austro-Hungarian empire, the infamous “dungeon of the nations.” It was built by Czech King Přemysl Otakar II in the mid-13th century, on a fairly low, but rather steep, rocky hill (290 m), rising directly over the historical centre of the town (at about 220 meters). It functioned as a prison after the defeat of the Uprising of the Estates in 1620, when leading Moravian members of the anti-Habsburg "insurrection" were imprisoned. In 1939-41, the German army and Gestapo carried out extensive reconstruction at Špilberk in order to turn it into a model barracks in the spirit of the romantic historicism so beloved of German third reich ideology. The Czechoslovak army left Špilberk in 1959, ending its military era. The following year, Špilberk became the seat of the Brno City Museum and today it is one of the most significant cultural centres in Brno. It was certified as a national heritage monument in 1962. There was no planned tour of Špilberk Castle, and the castle itself was closed after dinner, so Eva and I will try to go back on our own tomorrow.
The dinner was very nice, accompanied by Moravian musicians—violins, cimball (cembalo, in Czech), and bass. On our way back to the bus, a group of us Americans sang patriotic American songs in honor of America's Independence Day. I imagine there are fireworks in Prague tonight—although nothing to compare with those in America—but no fireworks are visible (or audible) in Brno.

posted by JWinn @ 7:55 PM